scholarly journals Connecting for Greater Purpose: An Examination of a District PLC

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Annie Gojmerac ◽  
Lorenzo Cherubini
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Teacher Leadership ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teacher Collaboration ◽  
School Level ◽  
Transformational Teaching ◽  
Professional Development Model ◽  
Service Paradigm ◽  
Improve Student Learning

This paper discusses an innovative professional development model based on a personal service approach of teacher collaboration in lieu of the more traditional expert-driven in-service paradigm. It presents a research-based Professional Learning Community (PLC) model in a large urban Ontario (Canada) school board that focused on transformational teaching strategies as a means of professional development to enhance teacher practice and improve student learning. The two key themes of the grounded theory qualitative analysis are also discussed. They include: (1) contextually-relevant PLCs, and (2) teacher leadership embedded in relationships. Last, the paper provides a framework for provincial, district, and school-level administrators to support the underlying values of teachers’ professional capacities as collaborative lead learners.

scholarly journals Blog-based professional development of English teachers in Mumbai: The potential of innovative practice under scrutiny

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atiya Khan
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teacher Collaboration ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
English Teachers ◽  
Information And Communications Technology ◽  
Learning Networks ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Interactive Workshop

The professional development of teachers in India is still, by and large, based on formal and outdated professional learning traditions, often characterised by crash courses and one-off workshops. In education, blogs have proven to be an effective means of establishing and maintaining collaborative learning networks and helping members reflect on their professional practices. Information and communications technology (ICT) enabled practices of teacher professional development is still in its infancy in India. Moreover, there is limited research in India to secure foundational understanding of how and in what ways teachers of English in India use blogs for their professional development. This study explores the use of teacher reflective practice, teacher networking, and teacher collaboration, beyond formal ICT training, through blog-based professional development of English teachers in the Mumbai region of India. Using data collected from 32 teachers from three private schools in Mumbai, through ICT interactive workshop observations, questionnaires, interviews, and blog comments, this action case study explains whether and why blogging, as a learning community, has the potential to add significant value to existing professional development of English teachers in Mumbai.

scholarly journals From Experience to Expertise: Professional Development through Collaborative Inquiry

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Cherubini ◽  
Annie Gojmerac
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Personal Service ◽  
Grounded Theory Research ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Professional Development Model ◽  
Theory Research

This research paper presents the outcomes of a professional learning community (PLC) of teachers involved in a personal service approach to professional development. The PLC was conceptualized as an inquiry-based professional development intervention based on teachers’ specific needs. Participants represented 4 regions that encompassed a large Ontario school board district. Through a qualitative grounded theory research approach, two key outcomes emerged from the data, including, ‘Intrinsic motivation to improve teaching and learning’ and ‘Critical reflections in teaching.’ By critically reflecting on their teaching within the PLC model, the teacher-participants guided their own professional development in the context of self-affirming practice. Since the research project was contextualized in the literature, the paper further discusses how this professional development model is ideally suited to meet the needs of teachers and students of the 21st Century. Lastly, it is suggested that this PLC model can be replicated in similar contexts by schools and school boards across the Golden Horseshoe.

scholarly journals Hastening slowly: insights about teacher development from an evaluation of courses at the WCED’s Cape Teaching and Leadership Institute

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Meyer ◽  
Lydia Abel
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Teacher Development ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
School Level ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
Leadership Institute ◽  
Service Training ◽  
Education Administrators ◽  
The Impact

In the area of teacher professional development, South African education administrators face the challenge of reconciling two imperatives that have entirely different implications for programme time frames and budgets. On the one hand, there is an urgent need to improve the pedagogic content knowledge of many teachers to improve the overall standard of teaching and learning in the public school system. Considering the scale and urgency of the matter, centralised course-based in-service training seems to be the only affordable alternative. On the other hand, researchers have long warned that once-off course-based training on its own has limited impact on teachers’ practice, and has to be accompanied by further professional support in the school and classroom, or be abandoned in favour of more enduring professional learning communities. The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has grappled with this dilemma in the Department’s various professional development initiatives for teachers, a mainstay of which is the training offered by the Cape Teaching and Leadership Institute (CTLI). This paper presents some of the data and findings from an external evaluation that ORT SA CAPE conducted in 2011–2012 of courses offered by the WCED at the CTLI. The hierarchy of INSET outcomes proposed by Harland and Kinder (1997) was applied to record changes in the practice of 18 teachers at eight schools. The progress of five of the teachers is discussed to illustrate the interplay between school-level factors and the experiences of individual teachers which influenced the impact of CTLI training on their teaching.

scholarly journals Communities of practice and PISA for Schools: Comparative learning or a mode of educational governance?

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
International Student ◽  
Student Assessment ◽  
School Level ◽  
Topological Spaces ◽  
Global Learning ◽  
Policy Cycle ◽  
International Student Assessment ◽  
New Variant

This paper examines the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) PISA for Schools, a new variant of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that compares school-level performance on reading, math and science with international schooling systems (e.g., Shanghai-China, Finland). Specifically, I focus here on a professional learning community – the Global Learning Network (GLN) – of U.S. schools and districts that have voluntarily participated in PISA for Schools, and how this, arguably, helps to normatively determine ‘what works’ in education. Drawing suggestively across diverse thinking around contemporary modes of governance, and emerging topological spaces and relations associated with globalization, and informed by interviews with 33 policy actors across the PISA for Schools policy cycle, my analyses suggest that GLN allows the OECD to discursively and normatively constrain how ‘world-class’ schools and systems, and their policies and practices, are defined. However, and in light of the productive capacities of power relations, I also argue that GLN provides opportunities for local educators and leaders to undertake meaningful collaboration and sharing, and to find policy spaces outside of those defined by more performative discursive framings of school accountability. To this end, I explore how GLN may help to foster alternative policy spaces from which educators can ‘talk back’ to national and state authorities, and potentially promote more ‘authentic’ understandings of, and possibilities for, schooling accountability.

scholarly journals Improved Professional Development Through Teacher Leadership

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley D. Hickey ◽  
Sandra Harris
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Staff Development ◽  
Teacher Leadership ◽  
Teacher Leaders ◽  
Exemplary Teachers ◽  
Development Model ◽  
Faculty Effectiveness ◽  
Professional Development Model ◽  
Teaching Faculty ◽  
The Impact

Research suggests the need to provide leadership opportunities for teachers within school settings in order to increase professional collaboration and community. This research explored one rural district’s professional development model, which was evaluated to determine its potential in developing teacher leaders. This district’s professional development model utilized their exemplary teachers to develop other teachers through formal presentations that were traditionally taught by non-district experts. This study utilized a practitioner research methodology to determine effectiveness of using teachers as leaders. Data were collected to determine the impact on the teacher leaders and the effectiveness of the presentations as perceived by the overall teaching faculty. The results suggest an overall positive experience for teachers, as well as an increase in collaboration. In addition, teacher presenters believed their participation in staff development increased faculty effectiveness and increased the perception of the teacher presenters as leaders within the district.  

The Role of a WhatsApp Group of a Professional Learning Community of Chemistry Teachers in the Development of Their Knowledge

2019 ◽  
pp. 117-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Blonder ◽  
Ruth Waldman
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Knowledge Development ◽  
Communication Behavior ◽  
Chemistry Teachers

The authors analyze chemistry teachers' discourse in a WhatsApp group. This online communication platform is used for continually studying the communication behavior of leading chemistry teachers who are members of a professional learning community (PLC). They describe the network of chemistry teachers' PLC in Israel, which provides the context for the study. WhatsApp enables sustained ongoing, intensive interaction, and sharing of knowledge that is practical, directly related to the members' needs, and is participant driven and constructivist in nature. A theoretical perspective of teachers' knowledge and professional development (PD) was developed in 2015 by Gess-Newsome, which was applied to examine the mechanism underlying teachers' knowledge development.

Telementoring and Virtual Professional Development

2010 ◽  
pp. 186-205
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Maurer
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Science Education ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Leadership Skills ◽  
Specific Content ◽  
High Background ◽  
Master Level

In science, examining how teachers can effectively learn content and inquiry-based pedagogy can often be nothing short of an intellectual, cognitive, and motivational maze. Professional development (PD) programs constructed specifically to aid teacher learning may fall short of their goals due to the high background variability of the participants, especially when mixing novice and master-level teachers. Only through conscious reorganization of instructional approaches can PD programs effectively address specific content and pedagogical needs while concurrently aiding the transition from novice to master-level teachers. It is time for a shift in how PD providers think about how teachers learn. Utilizing a theoretical perspective from Science Education, this chapter will demonstrate the benefits of moving to more of a contextual-based discourse that is accomplished through a virtual telementoring-based professional learning community (PLC) in order to enhance content, pedagogy, leadership skills, and positively impact teaching self-efficacy.

Exploring a Transformative Teacher Professional Development Model to Engender Technology Integration in the 21st Century ESL Language Classrooms

2021 ◽  
pp. 637-657
Author(s):  
Kean Wah Lee ◽  
Cynthia C. James
Keyword(s):  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Immigrant Teachers ◽  
Technology In Teaching ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Professional Development Model ◽  
Develop Technology ◽  
Teacher Professional ◽  
Set Up

A 21st century teacher must communicate in the language and style of their students to ensure that their learning is meaningful. However, this is challenging, especially for teachers who are less familiar with using technology in teaching. To inspire a group of ESL ‘digital immigrant' teachers, a professional learning community (PLC) was set up. PLC consisted of both pre-service teachers (digital natives) and in-service teachers (digital immigrants). The two groups exchanged knowledge through a series of sharing sessions to demonstrate the technical aspects of technology, as well as to provide an understanding that technology has affordances and constraints. This case study investigates a group of in-service teachers who adopted the IDDIRR instructional design model (introduce, demonstrate, develop, implement, reflect, revise) to develop technology-based lessons for their ESL classrooms. The data for this study were collected through three main instruments: surveys, interviews and written reflections. The survey data was descriptively analysed using SPSS Version 24, while the reflection and interview data were assessed using thematic analysis. The findings suggest that the IDDIRR-TPACK + PLC model, along with a supportive PLC environment and the presence of more knowledgeable peers (MKO), helped enhance teachers' TPACK and inspired them to integrate more technology in their classrooms.

Lessons Learned From the Implementation of a Technology-Focused Professional Learning Community

2012 ◽  
pp. 535-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Bruce Taylor ◽  
Richard Hartshorne ◽  
Sam Eneman ◽  
Patti Wilkins ◽  
Drew Polly
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
College Of Education ◽  
Learning Technologies ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Teaching Professional

In this chapter, “lessons learned” and best practices that have resulted from the implementation of technology-focused professional learning community in a College of Education, as well as recommendations for future implementations are addressed. The Technology & Teaching Professional Learning Community, which was created by faculty in the College of Education at UNC Charlotte, provided professional development to faculty engaged in teaching hybrid and online courses. This was one of several professional development efforts at UNC Charlotte, but one, the authors suggest, that created a safe and effective space for scaffolding instructors less familiar with online learning technologies and tools.

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